


It’s Not Easy Being Green-Fingered

by lachatblanche



Series: Of Cupcakes and Broccoli Patches [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Charles Is a Big Dorkface, M/M, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lachatblanche/pseuds/lachatblanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles develops a sudden interest in his local garden-centre. Raven suspects that said interest has very little to do with actual gardening.</p><p>She happens to be right. She also happens to disapprove. Not that anyone seems to care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s Not Easy Being Green-Fingered

**Author's Note:**

> Having finished my Dollhouse fic I wanted to write something completely different and light-hearted. This slightly cracky bit of weirdness is the result.
> 
> Also, in case you were wondering, there is sadly no actual fingering in this fic. Sorry :)

‘So,’ Raven said slowly, watching with narrowed eyes as her brother happily puttered about the garden centre. ‘Tell me again. Using short words and phrases this time, so that I remember: what exactly are we doing here?’

Charles hummed pleasantly as he bent down to sniff at a flower, the foliage (very conveniently) hiding his face from his sister’s scrutiny. ‘I told you,’ he said easily, his nose stuck deep in the forest of flower petals. ‘I thought that the manor could do with a bit of sprucing up. Nothing cheers up a room like a nice potted plant, don’t you think?’

‘I _don’t_ think,’ Raven retorted, hands coming to her hips even as her eyebrows rose high on her forehead. ‘And for that matter, neither do you. I _know_ you Charles. You like a pretty garden as much as anyone but only if you don’t have to get your hands dirty. There’s a _reason_ that we employ more gardeners than Buckingham bloody Palace, you know.’ She had bloody well counted them so she knew this for a fact. ‘You may have been blessed with brains, dear brother, but green-fingered you are _not_.’

Charles frowned at that, though he still did not turn around.

‘You don’t _know_ that-’ he began, only for Raven to cut him off.

‘Remind me again: what happened to that cactus I got you last Christmas?’

Charles immediately flushed bright red and muttered something under his breath.

‘Say that again?’ Raven sang in an obnoxiously cheerful voice.

‘I said it died!’ Charles snapped, scowling rather in the manner of an unhappy puppy. ‘But that wasn’t my fault! It’s not like I-’

‘Charles, it was a _cactus_ ,’ Raven said flatly, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘There’s _really_ not all that much that can go wrong with one. Trust me – I checked.’

‘It’s harder than it looks!’ Charles protested defensively, scowling down at the floor with something that Raven thought looked suspiciously like guilt. ‘And it’s not like I didn’t _try_. Something must have been wrong with it. Maybe it was old.’

Raven raised an eyebrow. ‘Charles, the poor thing died after a week,’ she said bluntly. ‘A _week_! I honestly don’t know how you managed it. Face it, brother of mine,’ she said, placing a not-very-sympathetic hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re just not cut out for this gardening lark. You never have been and you never will be. Which begs the question,’ her voice suddenly became sharp and her pink lacquered nails dug into his shoulder, ‘What. Are. We. Doing. Here?’

Charles winced as her nails dug in and for a moment it almost seemed as if he would crack. Then his face suddenly brightened.

‘Oh look,’ he said in a voice that made Raven’s eyes narrow. ‘The vegetable section! That looks interesting, doesn’t it?’ And then he was pulling out of Raven’s grasp and all but scurrying towards the opposite side of the garden centre, his eyes suspiciously bright. There was only so much enthusiasm that one could summon up at the prospect of broccoli, after all.

With a long-suffering sigh, Raven shook her head and began to follow.

She had just set foot into the vegetable section of the garden centre when she noticed that Charles had halted in front of a tomato plant, his fingers paused in mid-reach towards a curling leaf. More worrying than his apparent interest in tomato plants, however (the poor thing would never live to bear fruit if Charles ever got his hands on it) was the sudden soppy expression that had come over her brother’s face. An expression that Raven had come to know and dread whenever it came to pass. It was the expression that had preceded the Steve Rogers Debacle of 2005, the Lilandra Fiasco of 2007, and even (Raven winced at the mere memory of it) the Wade Wilson Complete Bloody Nightmare of two years ago.

It was at the point of this latter catastrophe that Raven had finally decided that she had had enough of Charles’s ridiculously-awful love life and had so gone on to take a firm stand and declare that the next such horror-fest would happen over her dead, bullet-ridden body.

You see, it was all very well for Charles to casually date or screw around or have a string of nameless one-night-stands. Charles was funny and flirty and (Raven grudgingly admitted) very easy on the eyes so none of these things were a problem. The _problem_ in question was the Look: the look that Charles got whenever he fell head-over-heels for someone who was (always, _always_ ) the _completely_ wrong person for him. Lilandra had tried to make Charles move halfway across the globe with her before they had known each other two weeks; Steve (who Raven had at first been so _sure_ was straight as an arrow, goddamn you faulty gaydar) had ended up having a desperate crush on one of Charles’s best friends, Tony Stark; and Wade … well, Raven wasn’t even going to _start_ on the batshit insanity of _that_ particular crush of Charles’s. Just … no. No, no, no, no, no.

So obviously, what with this wealth of history and experience behind her, Raven knew exactly what she was in for when she saw this dreaded look cross her brother’s face. She had, after all, been the one to clean up each and every single one of the awful messes left behind when Charles finally came back to his senses and realised that he _hadn’t_ actually met his one true love at the supermarket (Steve), or at one of his mother’s soirees (Lilandra), or … Raven wasn’t actually sure _where_ Charles had met Wade. A psychiatric ward, probably. She shuddered.

In any case, Raven’s duty here was clear. Charles was clearly a danger to himself and the love-sick look in his puppy-dog-eyes only meant trouble for the both of them. It was time to hit the ejector seat button and get them both the heck out of dodge before Charles could initiate contact with whatever asshole he had set his eyes on this time. She only hoped that she wasn’t too late. 

She smiled grimly to herself. Charles had obviously been here before. Sprucing up the manor, her _ass_. Her idiot of a brother was a fucking _stalker_.

Speaking of … Raven frowned and cast her eyes about the garden centre, trying to see who it was that Charles was busy drooling over. Her brother’s gaze was fixed somewhere near the runner beans, just off to the side there and …

Oh. Oh right. Hello there Mr. Tall, Dark and Drool-worthy.

Not that Raven was surprised. Her brother always did have impeccable taste – at least _superficially_. Raven ought to have known that the newest candidate would be a looker. 

She sighed, her eyes trailing up long, long legs, a narrow waist (not to mention that _very_ impressive-looking place in between), and a tight green polo-necked shirt spread over some deliciously-defined muscles. To be fair, she really couldn’t blame Charles. One look at this guy and she was ready to jump him herself. Perhaps she would. Perhaps he was straight and would be immune to even her brother’s notorious bedroom-eyes-and-godawful-chat-up-line seduction technique (she swore that Charles was totally the reason for her malfunctioning gaydar). Maybe Mr. Gorgeous over there would like _her_ better. Maybe he would ask her out. Maybe he’d fall in love with her. Maybe _she_ was the reason that this relationship wouldn’t work out for Charles … She paused. Biting her lip, she took a moment to mentally debate whether her debilitating lust would outweigh her potential guilt over stealing away the latest object of her brother’s affections. She hesitated. Then she cast a doubtful look at Charles, who was still mooning over Tall, Hot and Handsome. 

She sighed.

‘Damn you, Charles,’ she muttered, allowing her shoulders to slump as she reluctantly started making her way away from Mr. McGorgeous and towards the tomato plants where her brother was standing. ‘The things I do for you.’ Things which included not climbing the man her brother was lusting after like a tree. A very climbable tree. With lots of limbs. And a strong, solid trunk. And a very big –

She jerked to a stop as the man in question, as if sensing that someone was having disreputable thoughts about him, suddenly lifted his head up, a small frown on his face. He looked around him, his eyes flicking vaguely over Raven (who wasn’t disappointed in the least, god _dammit_ ) before suddenly snapping, like a magnet pulled to metal, to the figure of Charles in front of her.

And then he smiled.

And, oh. Wasn’t that just fan-bloody-tastic.

It took Raven a moment to drag her eyes away from the terrifying gleam of the innumerable white, pointy teeth and instead turn her gaze on her brother, who looked even more impressed by the smile than Raven had been. Maybe Charles had a thing for good dental hygiene. Or maybe he had a thing for shark-teeth. He always _had_ been a little bit odd, her brother.

Which only made it that much more vital that she saved him from himself.

‘Planning on growing tomatoes now, Charles?’ she asked with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, throwing her arm around him and forcing him to break eye-contact with Tall, Dark and Sharky.

Charles blinked at her, nonplussed, before flushing slightly and turning his attention back to the tomato plant. ‘They _are_ supposed to be rather easy to grow,’ he said slowly, chewing his lip. He glanced up out of the corner of his eye and the tips of his ears went red when he saw that he was still being observed by the mystery hot guy.

Oh no, Raven decided. This wouldn’t do at all.

‘Well maybe that’s where you’re going wrong,’ she said determinedly, clutching Charles tightly by the arm and trying to draw him away from the vegetable garden. ‘Maybe it’s the _easiness_ that is causing all the problems. It’s not good to be _too_ easy, after all. Nobody wants that.’

‘Huh?’ Charles looked confused and unhappy at being towed away from the vegetable section. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘What I’m saying,’ Raven said firmly, relieved to see the exit in sight, ‘Is that maybe you should give up on growing vegetables and try something else. How about flowers? Flowers are nice. I think you should start growing flowers.’

‘Flowers?’ Charles repeated, bewildered. ‘Why would I want to grow flowers?’

‘I don’t know,’ Raven gritted out. ‘Why would you want to grow _anything_?’

‘It might just be me,’ a low smooth voice interrupted from behind them and Raven felt her heart sink in her chest because she had been so _close_ , dammit, ‘But I find that there’s great pleasure to be had in making things grow.’

Raven turned around with a heavy heart, just in time to see Charles turn to look at the man who had spoken – and _of course_ it was the Hot Shark Guy because Raven never could catch a break – and gaze at him as if he had just spouted the most amazing revelation of the decade and not a thinly-veiled and mildly-sleazy come-on.

‘That’s exactly what I think!’ Charles exclaimed and now Raven _knew_ that Charles was screwing with her because there was no way in hell that her big-brained, I-had-a-PhD-by-age-fifteen older brother could be such a clueless, drippy _moron_ – and yet there they were.

‘That’s good to know,’ the man grinned and Raven cringed as Charles helplessly returned the smile, looking enraptured by the man in front of him. It was definitely time to intervene.

‘Yeah,’ she said, plastering a wide, artificial smile on her face. ‘It’s just a real pity that everything Charles tries to _grow_ shrivels up and _dies_.’ She cast a meaningful glare in the man’s direction, hoping he’d take the hint and kindly back the hell off.

Unfortunately, this only seemed to pique the man’s interest.

‘Is that so?’ he murmured, a smirk playing on the edge of his lips as he looked at Charles in a way that made Raven ever so slightly hate her overly-attractive elder brother. ‘We’ll have to do something about that then, won’t we?’

Charles, naturally enough, seemed perfectly on board with that idea.

‘Groovy,’ he said happily, beaming at the man, and for a moment Raven’s optimistic side reared its head up in the hope that Tall-Dark-and-Hot Guy would be put off by Charles’s dorky predilection for outdated slang. Unfortunately for her, Tall-Dark-and-Hot Guy seemed to be exceptionally charmed by dorky outdated slang, if the look he was giving Charles was any indication.

‘Wizard,’ she said abruptly, trying her luck. ‘Neat-o.’

Both Charles and the Hot Guy turned and blinked at her in confusion.

Raven scowled. Apparently it was only Charles who could get away with the dorky outdated slang then. Typical.

Apparently deciding that the best thing to do would be to ignore his wonderful and intelligent sister, Charles then turned away from her and beamed at Hot Guy with all the enthusiasm of an excitable puppy.

‘I’m Charles,’ he said breathily, holding out a hand that was so dangerously close to Hot Guy’s nether regions that for a moment Raven thought that her brother was going in for a casual grope rather than a handshake – in which case, good for him. She’d do the same if she could get away with it. She was almost disappointed when no actual groping occurred – she had rather been hoping that being saddled with a sexual harassment lawsuit would be enough to put an end to Charles’s lust for Mr. Sexy. Although, judging by the way the man was all but leering at her brother, she suddenly began to doubt that the scenario would have ended with a lawsuit.

‘Erik,’ Mr. Sex on Legs replied with a purr that did funny things to Raven’s insides. She scowled. Sometimes she seriously hated her brother. ‘Call me Erik.’

‘Hi,’ Charles breathed and for a moment he and Mr. Too-Sexy-For-His-Own-Good – Erik, of course, she meant _Erik_ – just stared at each other, each looking as stupidly besotted as the other.

Raven’s heart sank. Separating these two idiots was going to be next to impossible. They would probably sneak off to have sex on the cauliflower patch the moment her back was turned. Or the broccoli patch. Yes, that was it – they would probably have sex on the broccoli patch. Raven scowled. She hated broccoli.

‘Fucking broccoli,’ she swore under her breath.

Charles and Erik, meanwhile, were busy making sheep-eyes at each other (well, _Charles_ was – Erik looked more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing than an actual sheep. A very hungry wolf, too) and were talking about vegetables or manure or something of the sort that was way too boring for Raven to even attempt to care about.

‘I’m in charge of the vegetable centre as a whole,’ Erik was telling Charles, who was shamelessly hanging on to his every word. ‘But real my passion is green vegetables.’ He paused. ‘Especially broccoli.’ 

Raven narrowed her eyes. She fucking knew it. Well, there would be no romping on broccoli patches if _she_ had anything to do with it.

‘I –er-’ Erik was continuing and Raven stared as the suave charm actually disappeared for a moment as Erik seemed to shuffle his feet apprehensively, ‘I’m actually trying to engineer a variety that is particularly rich in iron, right now,’ he muttered, glancing down at his feet as if this wasn’t something that he told people very often. Raven could relate – if _she_ was trying to engineer an iron-rich strain of broccoli in her spare time then she probably wouldn’t tell people about it either.

Charles, however, seemed to be enraptured by the idea.

‘Fascinating!’ he exclaimed delightedly, and Raven was forced to consider the harsh truth that her brother was probably being genuine when he said that. Charles then went on to ruin the aura of wide-eyed sincerity, however, when moments later he brightly added a ‘I _love_ broccoli!’ declaration to the mix, even though Raven knew for a fact that he hadn’t eaten so much as a floret of the stuff since he was about twelve.

Fortunately – or _un_ fortunately, as the case were – Erik didn’t seem to be aware of this little white lie and Charles’s avowal of love for green, iron-rich vegetables actually seemed to turn him on if the wide, toothy smile he flashed at Charles was any indication. It was either that or Erik was indicating that they had about five seconds to run for the hills before he started feasting greedily on their still-warm innards – possibly less than five seconds, really, considering the way he was staring hungrily at Charles and all but drooling over his massive shark-teeth. 

Raven shivered. So did Charles, but Raven was pretty sure that he was shivering for a very different reason than she was. The moron.

‘You know,’ Erik was murmuring, the dorky vegetable-loving side of him suddenly giving way to the smooth, chocolate-tongued charm that almost made her forget the serial-killer vibes that she had been getting from him thus far, ‘I have a delightful little broccoli patch not too far away from here that I would just _love_ to show you, Charles …’

 _Oh hell no_ , Raven thought.

‘Oh hell no,’ she said out loud before realising that she had, in fact, _said it out loud_. She blinked. ‘I mean – we _can’t_. That’s what I meant.’

Erik turned to look at her with an expression that clearly showed that he had completely forgotten that she was even there, which, Raven thought sulkily, was _completely_ unfair. She was hot too, dammit!

Charles, meanwhile, looked almost distraught by Raven’s words.

‘What?’ he said with dismay, wearing an expression that would have been more suitable for the announcement that Christmas had been cancelled for the next ten years rather than the proclamation that he was forbidden entry to a vegetable patch. A _broccoli_ patch, at that.

‘Yeah,’ Raven said quickly. ‘We can’t do that.’

Charles raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

‘Well,’ Raven floundered. ‘We – we have to go home. Immediately. Like – right now.’

Charles frowned. ‘We do?’ he asked sceptically, crossing his arms. ‘Why?’

‘Yes,’ Erik added, his voice smooth and syrup-like even as his eyes promised Raven a long and painful death. ‘We’re terribly curious. Please, do let us know why you have to leave so very _soon_.’

‘Um,’ Raven swallowed. She wracked her brains. ‘I … left the iron on?’ she tried.

There was a moment of silence.

‘Raven,’ Charles said slowly, ‘Dearest, you _do_ realise that you haven’t done a single piece of ironing in your entire life, right?’

 _Fuck_ , thought Raven. He had a point.

‘Oh,’ she said quickly. ‘I meant my _curling_ iron. You know – for my hair?’ Ha, she thought smugly, Charles wasn’t the only one with brains in the family!

The expression on her brother’s face, however, said otherwise.

‘Raven!’ he snapped, agitated, ‘Why didn’t you say so before? Our whole house could be burning down at this very minute! You should have told me sooner – do you have any idea how _dangerous_ this is?’

Raven scowled. ‘Oh yeah,’ she said darkly, glaring at Erik who returned the expression with an equally malevolent one of his own, ‘I know danger when I see it.’

‘We have to get home,’ Charles fretted, digging into his pockets anxiously for his keys. ‘Oh dear.’ He glanced up at Erik with an expression that would have melted the heart of a blind walrus. ‘ _Erik_ …’ he said unhappily.

‘ _Charles_ ,’ Erik murmured wistfully.

‘ _Raven_ ,’ Raven muttered irritably because, hell, no one else was going to say her name in such tortured, love-struck tones, were they?

‘I’ll come back again,’ Charles promised, reaching forward to clasp Erik by the arm. ‘I – I still need to buy that tomato plant, after all.’

‘I will wait for you,’ Erik said solemnly, looking Charles straight in the eye. ‘And I look forward to showing you my broccoli patch.’ If that was some sort of innuendo then Raven didn’t want to know about it.

Charles smiled sadly. ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ he said before Raven snagged him by the arm and forcibly dragged him away.

Charles was mournful the whole way back home, his eyes distant and his sighs full of longing. Raven was forced to harden heart to them; lesser beings might have crumbled at the sight of Charles’s sad, puppy-dog eyes but she was made of sterner stuff.

She glanced over at her brother and swallowed. _Wade Wilson_ , she desperately repeated to herself, _Remember Wade fucking Wilson_.

The reminder strengthened her will and, conscience blissfully cleared, she straightened up in her seat. ‘Hey,’ she said brightly, trying to take Charles’s mind off tall, hot men who may or may not be distantly related to a particularly vicious species of shark. ‘I’ve got an idea. How about we stop off at Moira’s and get us some of those tiny chocolaty cupcakes you like so much? My treat!’ she said winningly. In addition to diverting Charles’s attention, she could also try to push him towards the (thoroughly vetted and Raven-approved) café-owner, Moira MacTaggart, whose interest in Charles was completely obvious to absolutely anyone and everyone who was not Charles. Also, Raven thought brightly, _cupcakes_.

Charles, however, looked appalled. ‘Raven!’ he said disapprovingly, ‘We can’t just stop off for cupcakes! We need to get home! You can’t honestly have forgotten about your curling iron _again_?’

Raven blinked. Oh. Yeah. That.

‘Oh,’ Raven said dumbly. ‘Yeah. That.’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘I’m guessing that cupcakes are out, then.’

‘You guessed rightly,’ Charles huffed. Then he suddenly brightened. ‘I wonder if Erik likes cupcakes!’

‘I wonder if Erik likes cyanide,’ Raven muttered.

‘What was that, dear?’

Raven sighed. ‘Nothing, Charles,’ she said tiredly, taking one hand off the steering wheel of the car to rub at her face. ‘You know,’ she said after a moment, still trying valiantly to divert Charles’s interest, ‘ _Moira_ likes cupcakes.’ She raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

Charles blinked. ‘Well,’ he said after a moment. ‘Yes. I should think that she does. Considering that she sells them in her café.’

‘Right,’ Raven’s voice was flat. ‘Obviously.’ She gritted her teeth and pushed down harder on the pedal of the accelerator.

Charles, seeming to realise that something was a bit off, turned to look at her with a frown. ‘Love?’ he asked, his brow furrowed. ‘Is something wrong?’

Raven gritted her teeth. ‘Oh no,’ she said with false brightness. ‘Everything is _fine_. Just super bloody _spiffing_.’

Charles blinked.

Raven twisted the car’s steering wheel sharply to the left and then slammed down on the brakes before turning to her brother.

‘Of course everything isn’t fine!’ she snapped, glaring at him. She determinedly did not pay any attention to Charles’s widened eyes because that way led madness. Or thoughts of cute little puppy dogs and Raven _so_ did not need to be thinking of cute little puppy dogs when she was trying to be full of wrath. ‘You’re mooning after a guy who could very possibly be a psychotic serial killer, Charles! How is that fine?!’

Charles looked aghast at the accusation. ‘I am?’ he asked, completely flummoxed. ‘But … I mean, _who_ -’

Raven let out a groan. ‘ _Erik!_ ’ she said pointedly, wondering if it was high time that the folks over at Mensa revoked Charles’s membership to their esteemed ranks. ‘Broccoli-obsessed hot guy with a smile like a shark? Works in a garden centre? Ring any bells?’

Charles’s expression immediately cleared up. ‘Oh, Erik,’ he repeated, smiling goofily at the mere mention of the name. Then he frowned. ‘Wait. _Erik?_ Why on earth do you think that he’s a serial killer?’

Raven raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you _seen_ him smile?’ she asked bluntly. At Charles’s look of incomprehension she rolled her eyes. ‘It practically _screams_ serial-killer, Charles! Besides,’ here she sniffed and turned away, not looking at him. ‘It was only a matter of time before it happened. I mean, there’s only _so_ much worse that you can go after Wade.’

A look of realisation crossed Charles’s face at that. ‘Ah,’ he said quietly, his expression suddenly unreadable. ‘I see.’ He met Raven’s eyes. ‘You think he’s another Wade.’

Raven immediately shook her head. ‘Oh no,’ she said firmly. ‘I think he might be even _worse_ than Wade.’

Charles’s face fell at that and, try as she might, Raven was unable to avoid the small stirring of guilt in her gut at the thought that she was the one to have put that expression on her brother’s face. ‘You really don’t like Erik, then?’ he asked in a small voice, avoiding her eyes and looking down at his hands which were fidgeting anxiously in his lap.

Raven hesitated. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, reluctant to upset her brother any further. ‘Honestly? I would tap that in a second – no, don’t look at me like that Charles, I wasn’t the only one thinking it – but then that’s _all_ I’d do. Just wham-bam-thank-you-man and that’s it.’ She paused. ‘You, though …. I’ve seen that look on your face before, Charles, and it’s telling me that you wouldn’t be able to let it go at that. Not with this guy. Not even if he turns out to be the biggest asshole in the world. And,’ her voice turned apologetic, ‘given your track record, he probably will.’

Charles didn’t respond to that but Raven could tell that he was thinking the matter over. She watched as his shoulders began to slump and forcibly stifled the urge to smother her wonderful, idiotic brother in a hug. 

‘Oh come on,’ she said consolingly. ‘This is a _good_ thing. You’re probably saving yourself a whole lot of trouble here. I mean, it’s not as if you were ever going to go on to have sex and get married and become best friends. Well,’ she amended after a minute, ‘Probably the sex part would have happened but then after that it would have all gone down the pan … Right?’

Charles didn’t answer immediately. ‘I guess,’ he eventually mumbled, fiddling with the cuffs of his jumper.

‘Exactly! And there’s plenty more fish in the sea, right?’ Raven hastened on, eager to cheer her brother up. ‘You’re young, you’re hot – and you can do _way_ better than a guy who works in a garden-centre, right?’

‘Hmm,’ Charles murmured, still looking down at his hands. Then: ‘Raven?’

‘Yup?’

‘You didn’t actually leave your curling iron on, did you?’

Raven opened her mouth and then quickly shut it again. _Busted._

Biting her lip, she turned to Charles with Look Number Five on her list of expressions that Helped Her Get Out of All Kinds of the Most Ridiculous Shit Ever, Particularly With Charles (the name was long, she knew, but she was working on it). ‘Er … maybe?’ she answered tentatively.

Charles was silent for a moment and Raven swallowed at the sight of the tiny furrow in the middle of his forehead. Maybe he had genuinely liked Erik, she thought wildly, shifting uneasily in her seat. Maybe Charles had liked him enough that he was now pissed off with Raven and would hate her forever and never talk to her and never make her any of those tiny little finger sandwiches that she liked so much ever again because he thought that she was a bad sister and fuck, there was a _reason_ that she never did anything altruistic because shit like this _always_ -

‘Right,’ Charles said abruptly, straightening up in his seat with newly-fixed resolve and breaking Raven out of her mental cyclone of panic. He turned to her and raised an eyebrow. ‘So …’ he said, and Raven held her breath, ready for the proclamation of disownment that she was sure was coming her way. ‘… I think you said something about Moira’s chocolate cupcakes?’

Raven blinked. She stared at her brother for a moment. And then she grinned.

‘Fuck yes,’ she said, and jamming her foot down on the accelerator pedal in a way that made Charles’s face go oddly green, she swung the car out of the verge and back onto the road, grin on her face once more.

She would buy Charles half a dozen cupcakes, she decided, and if he was still sore about Garden Centre Guy – there was no need to remember his name now, she thought smugly – then she would go and buy him a nice potted shrub to look at. Or maybe a kitten. It was riskier, of course (for the kitten) but perhaps this way Charles could find an outlet for his affections in a way that did not involve heartbreak and the deviant misuse of broccoli. Raven’s eyes narrowed. Garden Centre Guy had been _very_ enthusiastic about his broccoli, after all.

She turned her head and glanced over at Charles. He had a glazed, far-away look in his eyes. Probably imagining those cupcakes, Raven decided, shaking her head fondly. She glanced over at him again, watching as he licked his lips. Yup, she thought with satisfaction, definitely the cupcakes.

She leaned back in her seat and allowed a small smile of triumph to slide over her face. She was one heck of a badass sister, even if she said so herself. She had protected Charles from heartbreak, avoided a future broccoli-related scandal, and was now going to set her brother up with a cupcake-making genius who had the power to ensure that Raven never went a day in her life without a pile of chocolaty morsels of deliciousness at her side, and then Charles would love her even more and build a her a shrine in tribute and make her the Maid of Honour at his wedding and everything would be sunshine and roses and cupcakes forever and ever, amen.

Yup, she decided smugly as she lifted her chin with pride, there was simply no way around it: she was a complete and utter success as a sister and Charles was fucking lucky to have her.

With this firmly in mind, she pressed her foot down on the accelerator and drove her brother away from the shark-infested waters of the garden centre and towards his bright, chocolate cupcake-filled future in a café far, far away from the evils of broccoli.

**Author's Note:**

> Just for the record, I have nothing against broccoli. I do, however, very much enjoy chocolate cupcakes. (And no, this is not innuendo :)
> 
> Also, I might write more in this verse in the future. Maybe.


End file.
